


Basil and Alistair's Interesing Adventure in Somerset

by Nehszriah



Series: The Thick of UNIT [17]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bristol, Gen, I tried to write something Peter and Nicolas might like to act in and I hope I nailed it, Kinda, Motorcycles, Prompt Fic, Somerset, The Thick Of Unit, Twelve's self-imposed lockdown in Bristol, a gun works for once, it's more inbetween G and T in rating but whatever, mentions Twelve/River and Whouffaldi and the Brig's marital problems, the author REALLY doesn't like Nardole, the start of an epic friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 06:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23846890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehszriah/pseuds/Nehszriah
Summary: With orders fresh from Geneva, Alistair heads to Bristol to investigate something odd occurring there. Little did he know what--or who--he would encounter there.[alternate first meeting of the Doctor and the Brig, featuring Twelve]
Relationships: The Doctor & Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Twelfth Doctor & Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Twelfth Doctor & Nardole
Series: The Thick of UNIT [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/355700
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Basil and Alistair's Interesing Adventure in Somerset

**Author's Note:**

> Technically-speaking, this is some backstory for my Doctor Who/The Thick of It AU called The Thick of UNIT (Chapter Thirty-Eight, specifically). However, I feel like this can also be read as a stand-alone story, which takes place in its own alternate timeline from the canon turn of events. That being said, I'm also being deliberately fuzzy and inaccurate on early UNIT details and the Brig's history, because of not only the nature of this AU, but also because being questionable at details in a timey-wimey manner is a time-honored Doctor Who tradition that leaves things nice and loosey-goosey for fic writers wanting to write things such as this.

**_20 October 1965_ **

_“We need you in Bristol; something is going on, but we don’t know what other than the name. Cable your findings in a week.”_

That was how the meeting had gone with Geneva two days prior as he received his first official UNIT assignment. Alistair folded his newspaper up and finished the remainder of his tea. This was going to be a tedious assignment by the looks of things, which he was definitely not anticipating being wrong on for once.

‘ _Why Bristol, of all places?_ ’ he wondered. He left the noisy cafe terrace and put the paper under his arm, walking down the street. It was all just a bunch of grisly trollop anyhow—a series of youth murders in the North were dominating the news cycle, making it very dull when all was said and done. It was sad to think of, certainly, especially as he thought of his young daughter back home, yet it was drowning out any potential leads he could get on the local disturbance.

Ha… _disturbance_ … it was the dull name for what UNIT was founded to investigate and combat: non-Human forces of varying sentience. They had sound evidence of not only a strange, lizard-like-yet-humanoid lifeform dominating the planet millennia ago, but there was also a growing interest in the paranormal and extraterrestrial that could not be investigated by conventional, open means. To any normal individual, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce was a paramilitary arm of the UN designed to tackle unique yet local tasks… but any close inspection would reveal their true nature.

Around a couple corners and Alistair stumbled upon a park next to what looked like a university. It was rather tree-lined and quiet, which he preferred. Maybe now he could concentrate on scouring the paper… maybe catch wind of something via loose lips and gossip chains that were ambling by.

Except, as he fluffed out the paper, he noticed something peculiar: there was another man sitting across the way staring at him. He was doing a poor job at peeking over his own paper; if he was trying to be inconspicuous then he would do a better job wearing a bright pink suit instead of his plaid trousers and sweatshirt-under-coat layering.

“Can I help you?” Alistair asked, putting his paper down again. The other man, with his shock of wild grey hair and steel-blue eyes, attempted to hide behind his newspaper. “Yes, I am talking to you. Why are you staring?”

“I’m not staring,” the other man replied. Scottish—Glasgow, if Alistair heard correctly—and attempting to now ignore him.

“You were.”

“Well, you look like an old friend, is all. Go about your day.”

Now that was suspicious enough to warrant investigating. Alistair stood and walked over to the other bench, getting the other man's attention.

“I am an operative from the United Nations’ UNIT branch,” he stated. “I was sent here to investigate some goings-on in the area. You wouldn’t happen to know of anything… _peculiar_ … going on, would you?”

“That depends on the type of peculiar you speak of,” the stranger replied.

“Unexplainable, strange, otherworldly…” He watched as the other man fidgeted—got something. “What is your name?”

“Basil.”

He didn’t buy that for a moment. “Your whole name.”

“You can call me Basil, or if you really want, the Doctor.”

“Doctor…? Doctor Whom…?”

“Oh, leave it to you to mess it up,” Basil grimaced. He stood and found he was slightly shorter than Alistair, which seemed to irk him. “Are you a brigadier yet, or is this another UNIT incarnation? I was always unclear on that.”

“…how do you know my rank…?” Alistair wondered cautiously.

“Good, we don’t know one another yet in your time stream—that makes this easy.” Basil began to walk away, with Alistair rushing to catch up. “Though I could have sworn I met you prior to this point…”

“That doesn’t matter,” Alistair insisted. “What I need to know is how you _know_ my rank!”

“I know a lot more about you than your rank, _Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart_ ,” Basil replied. Alistair stopped walking, staring slack-jawed and shocked. “Oh come on now… you’re going to deal with much stranger things than that by the time you retire.”

“How do you…?”

“I am the Doctor from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation Kasterborous. I travel throughout time and space in my ship, the TARDIS, which looks much like a police box. The past nine-hundred or so years, I have been living here, in Bristol, while the city has grown up around, and to spite, me.”

“Then _you're_ the disturbance they want me to look into!”

“Yes and no—yes because you probably want to look into the fact that I’m here, and no because I am definitely not attempting to catch your attention. You’d know if I was.”

Alistair paused at that, considering the other man’s words carefully. “If so, then what _are_ you doing…?”

“Possibly creating a bootstrap paradox, possibly not—depends on how this is going to go,” he shrugged. Basil noted Alistair’s confused expression and recalled that, ah yes, there was occasion where he needed to use kid gloves with the old chap. “Back when I was a much-younger man, we were friends. Looked a bit different then—my kind _regenerates_ and changes most biological markers under certain circumstances, leading to variance in phenotypic structures, amongst others—and I had always been under the impression that we had first met when I was on a previous face, under different circumstances, but… now I’m not entirely certain.”

“Friends? How did we become friends?”

“UNIT, mostly, though we did a fair amount outside as well from what I can recall,” Basil explained. He leaned forwards and sniffed the air closer to Alistair. “Ah—Kate’s bouncing around and doing well, though you and Fiona aren’t getting on as you’d like.”

Alistair took a step backwards and frowned. “Leave my family out of this.”

“Oh no, they’re in nothing at all. You simply still smell like them—get out this way only this morning?”

“How peculiar…” Alistair narrowed his eyes as he regarded this man, so blustering and strange and knew oh-so-much about him. “I am not telling Geneva about you… not yet…”

“…because whatever it was you were sent here to investigate, it certainly does not involve me.”

“Correct,” Alistair nodded. He pondered his situation, calculated the risks, and went for it. “What can you tell me about someone called Nestene?”

Basil’s eyes lit up in, dare Alistair say it, excitement. He clapped his hands together and pointed at the other man as though he’d been told Christmas had come early.

“I knew it!” he beamed. “Here Nardole thought I’d gone soft, been under the radar for too long, but no… _no_ … I can still recognize the Nestene when I see them! Come with me!”

“Where t—aaah!” Alistair gasped as he was pulled along by his elbow, Basil attempting to drag him out of the park. He took his arm back and followed the other man as they quickly navigated across a couple streets and campus alleyways until they arrived at a specific university building. It made Alistair keep a sharp eye out for anything odd or off as they went indoors—why a _school_ of all things?

A quick sprint up some stairs and Alistair saw that they were on a floor with faculty offices. He hesitated, which caused Basil to glance back at him.

“We’re going to my office,” he said.

“You work here?”

“I _founded_ here.”

A few more steps and Basil disappeared inside of an office down the corridor. Following him cautiously, Alistair glanced about to see if there was anything peculiar or out of place. No—it was a normal corridor in a normal university. Nothing was odd, nothing was out of the ordinary, nothing was worth note when it came to the brass waiting for him back in Geneva. He came to the door that was emblazoned simply with “THE DOCTOR” and took a deep breath, knowing that there would likely be no better lead than this.

Stepping inside the office, Alistair knew that it was something different… something within UNIT’s realm. It seemed rather normal, as there were plenty of shelves of books and furniture and papers and chalkboards and other academic miscellanea scattered about, though something was still off. There was a sort of presence he couldn’t describe… an odd feeling that was nagging in the back of his brain… something was telling him to both run for his life and stay in order to save it.

“That's the TARDIS’s chameleon circuit,” Basil said blithely. He continued shuffling through the papers that littered his desk, not even glancing up.

“…are you inside my head…?”

“In a way; we spent so much time together that I’m embarrassingly good at tapping into your mental frequencies. Not many I can do that with… not at least without a lot more physical contact.”

Alistair paused uncomfortably. “Physical contact…?”

“My telepathy is generally poor for my species, so skin-to-skin contact helps tremendously in most cases.” Basil looked up at Alistair, seeing that his face was doing something funny… something he knew wasn’t good. “What's that face about?”

“We’re just mates, right…? _British_ mates…?”

Basil blinked, then rolled his eyes. “Yes, just mates in the British sense of the term; why is intercourse the first thing you people always think about?”

“That’s… erm…”

“No, wait, answered my own question,” Basil said. He then looked down at the mess on his desk and scowled furiously. “NARDOLE?! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

“Wha…” was all Alistair could get in before a startlingly-egg-shaped man poked his head in the office from a side-door, a frilly apron adorning his front.

“What?” Egg-Man—the presumed Nardole—frowned.

“Did you clean my desk?!”

“Does it look clean to you?”

“I need that paper!”

“Be specific—we’re still murdering all the trees we can before moving onto rare metals, remember.”

“I am not in the mood for your sass,” Basil snapped, pointing at Egg-Man. The egg rolled his eyes and left, grumbling under his breath about something or other… Alistair couldn’t hear. “What good is a secretary if nothing stays organized?”

“What was the answer…?” Alistair finally asked. The Doctor raised an eyebrow—a beat—then remembered.

“Intercourse is one of the main things Humans think about because they have the built-in instinct to perform the act in order for the species to survive, creating other, tinier Humans, which then continue to get on my nerves because they grow up to be no better than the larger Humans who made them.”

“…then how do you explain…” Alistair glanced around quickly, making certain they were not being spied upon by Egg-Man or anyone else, “…people who aren’t going to do that no matter how hard they try? The not-so-in-the-British-sense mates?”

“They’re still exercising that need, only waiting for science to catch up,” Basil shrugged. “The advances in reproductive health that you shall see in your lifetime are going to be astronomical.”

“That’s… grand…” He watched Basil as he continued to scour the desk, frantically searching for whatever paper it was he required. “So what can you tell me about this Nestene fellow?”

“It’s not a fellow, but more of a collective, a consciousness,” Basil explained. “Think more like a beehive often appears to think in unison, but this is truly so.”

“So they’re bees.”

“No, worse: bees can only sting you, killing at the most.”

Alistair didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s worse…?”

“ _Replacing you_.” Basil stopped searching and looked Alistair, making direct, deadly-serious eye contact. “The Nestene Consciousness can replicate other life forms via extensions of itself called Autons, even tricking said Autons that it is the real deal. It can kill you, replicate you, send that false you home to your wife and daughter, and even though it’ll believe it is you, it will still kill your family if the Consciousness deems it beneficial.”

…oh.

“Then what do we do to stop it? I can have Geneva send over troops at once.”

“Troops won’t work, not with this,” Basil said. “The less we draw attention to ourselves, the better.”

“…but we’re two men. What sort of threat are we, from their standpoint?”

“We are not just two men: we are two men who are defending their home, and we are on home turf.”

“I thought you were from another planet,” Alistair said. He watched as Basil avoided eye contact, instead going back to the papers. “Doctor? What is the matter?”

“My _planet of origin_ is not this one, but my **_home_** is here, on Earth.”

There was something that clicked into place for Alistair, piecing everything together clearly for the first time in regards to the man in front of him. Basil was, as best his brain could manage, a foundling, a refugee, a toy cast aside for something shinier and newer. This truly was an extraterrestrial alien in front of him—no doubt about it—and not only that, but it was one that was comfortable admitting an incredibly painful thing to him. It was something that was more for long-time mates, not strangers who had known one another for half an hour, a decent portion of which involved walking.

“Here we are,” Basil said, voice rather subdued for the length of his search. He showed Alistair what seemed like an aerial black-and-white photograph of the countryside. “I thought there had been a Nestene scout ship hiding nearby, but I couldn’t prove it until now…”

“…and how do you know there’s a scout ship in this photo?”

“The patterns in the crops.”

That confused Alistair. “What patterns?”

“Precisely. There are no patterns whatsoever, even ones that could indicate a planting process, which is fairly impressive for a series of fields that are supposed to be providing a farmer with food to sell.”

“You’re mad,” Alistair frowned.

“No, I’m observant. For the Nestene being a creature that lives off of infiltrating other species, it is relatively poor at mimicking them in all regards.”

“How poor are we talking?”

“Absolute rubbish.”

“Then why aren’t more people noticing them?”

“Think about people,” Basil said. He leaned with one hand on his desk, the other on his hip. “You were chosen for UNIT—for this mission—because you notice things. How many times have you seen others just walk by a sign without reading it? Sit at the park and not look up from their paper?”

“…plenty of people…”

“…in all the time I’ve been around humanity, the entire time this city has built itself up around me for better or worst, something I’ve definitely learned is that your kind is very often stuck in their own little world. Your daydreams, your books, your newspapers, your radios, your mobiles… it’s all simply aggravating how little attention is truly paid.” Basil saw the quizzical expression on Alistair’s face and grimaced. “Oooh, not there yet for mobiles? Sorry. Well, a lot more advances are going to happen in your lifetime, just know that.”

“That’s all well and good if your critique of my species is done, but I’d like to know how we’re going to stop this Consciousness from taking even one step towards infiltrating humanity.”

“We go there and we show them that we are not about to mess around,” Basil said. He went to a cupboard on the other side of the room, rummaging through it until he plucked out a glass bottle of what appeared to be spoilt apple juice. “I’ve needed to test this for a couple centuries now and I finally have the ability to do so.”

“What… erm… is it…?”

“Simply put? An acetone-based solution I developed just in case I happen upon the Nestene without access to my normal stable of tricks.” He placed the bottle in a messenger bag and tossed the entire thing at Alistair, who caught it awkwardly against his chest. “Now, since I doubt you want to walk to the Mendips, let me get our ride.” Basil then ducked inside the police box sitting in the corner, which Alistair just then took notice of—what was a police box doing there…? He was just about to open the door when Basil popped back out again, _somehow_ walking along a motorbike, two helmets sitting atop the seat.

“How in the…?!”

“I know, it’s a regular motorbike, but the anti-grav one was nearly totaled by Isambard and I’m still having a rough time of fixing it,” Basil said. He looked over at the side-door and scowled. “NARDOLE! TAKE CARE OF MY APPOINTMENTS! I’M GOING OUT!”

“ _You can’t, sir!_ ” Egg-Man scolded from another room. “ _You need to stay here!_ ”

“You are not my wife!”

“… _but she **did** put me in charge!_”

“…only because unless you’re fussing, your gears freeze up!” Basil then turned back to Alistair, nodding in the direction of the door. “Quickly, before he gets proton weights and we’re both stuck here.”

“ _If you don’t stop **this instant** I will have **no choice** but to use the proton weights to keep you both here!_” Egg-Man shouted. Basil and Alistair rushed to get the motorbike out in their panic, haphazardly taking it down the stairs and jamming the helmets and goggles on soon as they were out the door so they could hop on and ride away laughing.

The Egg-Man was _furious_.

* * *

A bit of a drive later and the Doctor pulled off to the side of the road to stop the motorbike. They were now in rural Somerset—out of Bristol and past Bath—in an area that was rolling hills filled with pasture and farmland. Having found a small copse of trees for cover, Basil went and hid his motorbike in some underbrush while Alistair took it upon himself to relieve his bladder against a tree.

“Do you have to do that here?” Basil frowned.

“I hadn’t had a chance to use the loo since my morning coffee,” Alistair reasoned. “Riding on the back didn’t help either.”

“Why? You were perfectly fine back there!”

“I couldn’t shift about—people were already looking at us like we were more than British mates.”

“Oh, there’s that again.” Basil rolled his eyes and took a piece of paper from his pocket. Alistair zipped himself up and went to take a look, seeing that it was a map. He then noticed Basil was leaning away from him, a displeased look upon his face.

“What?”

“Hold out your hands,” Basil requested. “Palms up.” Alistair did and he spritzed something on them with a small spray bottle. “Rub that on your hands.”

“What…?”

“Sanitizer—why couldn’t you just wait until we found a toilet?”

“Nature _is_ a toilet—ugh, fine, we shouldn’t be arguing about this. That map… where’s it say we still need to go?”

“This way,” Basil said, pointing towards another hill. “The Nestene have their base in that direction, over a few property lines.”

“Are there no roads?”

“There are, but this way they don’t hear us coming.”

“Solid plan as any. Let’s go.”

The pair started walking, side-by-side, though with the Doctor half a step in the lead. After some paces of quiet, Alistair decided that he was going to break the silence between them.

“So… your wife put Nardole in charge?” he posed. He glanced over at the man next to him and raised an eyebrow. “I guess even space aliens have marital issues.”

“I don’t have marital issues… not like what you’re thinking,” Basil replied. “Fiona and you have your problems, while River and I have ours… the only similarity is that neither of our problems can exactly be solved by that doddering busy-body.”

Alistair nodded at that in understanding. “Where’d she go? Your wife?”

“The Moon.”

“It’s really difficult to tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, I hope you realize this.”

“River put Nardole ‘in charge’ because she took a new teaching position and it was likely we weren’t going to cross paths again,” he explained further. “It was… difficult… and I think she thought keeping Nardole around would help me with the transition.”

“…but you can travel throughout time and space. Can’t you just join her?”

“It’s not that simple, mostly _because_ I can travel throughout time and space.” He shrugged as he tried to not make eye contact. “River and I never were synced up really well timeline-wise. My first time meeting her from my perspective was her last seeing me, for instance.”

“That’s… different.”

“It’s how things go in my way of life on occasion.”

“…and no one’s caught your eye since?”

Basil shook his head. “Not since arriving in Bristol, no. There was someone before River and I found one another for the last time, but we were at an understanding, considering the circumstances.”

“So you both had affairs.”

“No—that would imply that something was intrinsically wrong at the core of our relationship. We just did things differently. At least, I wouldn’t call anything I did ‘an affair’.”

“Then what was her name?” Alistair noticed how dark Basil’s face became at the question and shuddered. “What’s with that look? Doctor…?”

“I don’t remember, and when I don’t remember something— _someone_ —as important as her, then that means that my species was involved, and nothing good _ever_ comes from my species needing to intervene in something like that.” They stopped walking and Basil looked Alistair directly in the eyes, the latter truly seeing how unfathomably ancient and tired the former was by gaze alone. “It’s like a hole deep in my hearts, a hole with such a winding, twisting shape that it can never be filled, and it’s the bloody wound leftover from when they forcibly ripped her from me. I don’t remember what she looks like, smells like, sounds like… and I fear I might have even forgotten her name. Not even twenty-four linear years with my wife had a chance of healing or filling such a gaping wound, and it will likely be that way until I regenerate.”

“Why is that?”

“…because each new face has different defenses, different weaknesses, different ways of coping. I’m the same person with the same memories, but each regeneration is like a death and a life at once, and the life that is born is built to withstand what wore down the previous one to death.”

“…so, then your species functions like a series of prototypes…? Am I getting that right…?”

“I knew I liked you for a reason.” Basil cracked a wan smile and continued walking, Alistair not far behind. The pair eventually came within an arm’s throw of what looked like a field of sweetcorn not yet harvested, though the stalks appeared to be a blue-green color. “See what I mean?”

“Corn should have been long-picked by now, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a variety like that from the market,” Alistair marveled. Basil grinned at that admission—he was right. “So, what do we do to frighten them off?”

Basil pulled his companion behind a nearby tree and began to go through the messenger bag they brought along. He pulled out the bottle of acetone solution, as well as an oddly-shaped blue-gold-and-silver wand and a small paper bag, both of which he immediately put in his pocket.

“Here, put these on,” Basil said. He pulled a pair of sunglasses from his coat pocket and handed them to Alistair. “They should help should this version of the Nestene be somewhat competent when it comes to replication.”

“They’re just Wayfarers,” Alistair pointed out. Basil stared at him until he cautiously put them on, staggering back once the sunglasses turned on. They were more than ordinary sunglasses, showing him varying graphs and bits of data and other information, all as he looked around in his shock. A few moments and the readouts—and by extension Alistair himself—was finally able to calm down. “Okay… not _just_ Wayfarers.”

“Sonic sunglasses—quite the handy device,” Basil smirked. “Now follow my lead.”

“Wait… what…?”

Too late; Basil had already jumped out from behind the tree and was headed towards the field. Alistair had to jog to catch up, catching pace just as they went over the property line. As they went through the tall stalks of “corn”, it was difficult to not feel the stiff, awkward facsimile that was around them. The texture of the leaves and stalks made Alistair cringe unexpectedly—it was one of the oddest sensations that he’d ever felt, though at least he knew that it was not something Earthly in make.

“It’s a pseudo-plastic,” Basil explained. He was waving about the wand he took from the bag, it whirring softly and emitting a green light. “It behaves as many manufactured plastics do, but it certainly is _not_ a true plastic as you know now or ever will know.”

“Shall I encounter these in the future?” Alistair asked. Basil simply turned around and placed a finger to his lips.

“Spoilers.”

“Who are you who trod in my field?!” a voice bellowed. Alistair glanced around, though Basil merely shook his head. “You are trespassing!”

“No more than you are,” Basil shrugged. “Actually, the one of us who is trespassing the least is my associate here, and he still technically is, so really stop calling the kettle whatever it is you think it should be called.”

“Who is that…?” Alistair wondered, looking around. The sonic sunglasses were being interfered with, as the readings were coming up jumbled.

“That is _the disturbance_ … the Nestene,” Basil said.

“So you know what you have gotten yourselves into,” the voice chortled.

“Roughly,” Basil replied. “I just want to know where you are… you normally aren’t out in the open like this…”

“Maybe, it’s to simply hide from you, Doctor.”

There was a rustling in the plastic corn stalks, first behind them, then in front of them, then this way and that. The Nestene Consciousness clearly thought itself with a card up its sleeve. Standing back to back, Basil and Alistair attempted to pinpoint the source of the rustling, to no avail—neither sonics could pick anything up.

Then, suddenly, the fake corn stalks began moving on their own, behaving more like dozens upon dozens of prehensile tails than plants. They wrapped around Basil and Alistair’s ankles and wrists, effectively holding them in place.

“I didn’t think it would be this easy to kill a Time Lord,” the voice laughed. “This was almost too simple.”

“Think again,” Basil said. He tried to reach inside his jacket for the bottle of acetone solution only to find that his reach was just too short. They were running out of time—stalks were beginning to move up their arms and legs and was already at his throat. “Alistair! Touch the stalks!”

“Why…?!” Alistair wondered, thoroughly confused.

“Just do it!”

Alistair struggled to reach one of the stalks wrapping around his arm. When he grabbed it, the stalk hissed and bubbled, warping and melting until it dropped away to the ground—dead. He touched the other fake corn stalks that were attempting to constrict him, finally breaking free so that he could do the same for the Doctor.

“What did you put on my hands earlier?!”

“A sanitizer, mostly,” Basil defended. “It just so happens to also be an alternative formula to my solution, and I wanted to see which works better.”

Alistair stood there, dumbfounded, suddenly not caring they were in the middle of a killer cornfield. He watched as Basil finally got the bottle out of his pocket and opened it, splashing a bit on the remaining nearby stalks to watch them bubble and melt way.

“You’re absolutely _mad_ ,” Alistair marveled. He watched as the surviving stalks all began to lean away from them in terror. “It looks like they work.”

“This one, although I’m not certain if it’s the amount used or the effectiveness of the solution itself…” Basil examined the remaining liquid in the bottle, attempting to mentally figure out the conundrum. As he did, the false corn stalks began to part, showing a path deep into the other side of the field, where a battered-looking spaceship was sitting, a large being next to it that Alistair could only think of as a cross between a brain and a squid.

“You think you have outwitted me?” the brain-squid cackled. “You are nothing, Time Lord. You and your pet won’t be able to come here and face me—your stores of poison won’t last.”

Alistair’s eyebrows arched at that. Pet…? Pet?! He didn’t care what sort of Lovecraftian horror was standing in front of him—he was ready to end the interaction.

“Get off our world,” he warned loudly.

“This world was never yours,” the brain-squid said, “and now you will watch your master fall, followed by the rest of this silly rock.”

“Not on my watch.” Alistair turned towards the Doctor, expression seemingly calm, though they both knew he was thoroughly livid beyond all reason. “Doctor, throw the bottle at this uncooked appetizer.”

“…are you sure?”

“Just do it.”

Basil did, throwing the bottle hard enough that it connected with ship, shattering and spilling the chemical solution everywhere. The Time Lord glanced back at Alistair to ask what the next step in the plan was, only to see that the other man had gone and calmly pulled out a pistol, firing so suddenly it made him jump. A spark lit when the bullet ricocheted off the ship, igniting the acetone solution and setting the Nestene ablaze.

“I warned him,” Alistair said coolly. “Now let’s get out of here before any of the locals figure out what’s going on.”

“Agreed,” Basil nodded. They ran from the field, making it back to where they hid the motorbike in time to watch the Nestene ship hover slightly before taking off, completely putting out the flames with the subsequent air displacement. The field was a smoldering mess, with the putrid smoke and smell being detectable from the road.

“I know they said a week, but I think Geneva is going to get their cable a bit sooner than that,” Alistair said as he put on his helmet. He then thought for a moment. “Doctor… what was in that bag?”

“…which bag?”

“The paper one; the one still in your pocket.”

“Ah.” Basil pulled the bag out and held it in his palm as he opened it, holding it out. “Jelly Baby?”

They both had a sweet before getting back on the motorcycle and driving away, just in time, it sounded like, to dodge the local law enforcement as they attempted to investigate whatever had just gone on.

Even had they stopped and explained the situation, it wasn’t as though they would believe them. Squid-brain-aliens in the Mendips? Fanciful and fantastic codswollop.

* * *

With the cable sent and everything wrapped up, Basil and Alistair went back to the former’s office to have tea, the Egg-Man absolutely boiling by the time they returned.

“You are being far too reckless!” Egg-Man scolded as Basil ignored him, still putting together their snack. “I know it’s difficult being stuck here, but you know why! It’s your duty!”

“Don’t you have something else to do?” Basil said idly. “Go fetch some crisps, and don’t come back until you’ve found some McCoy’s—blue packet!” Egg-Man groaned loudly and left in a huff, nearly slamming the door behind him.

“Local brand?” Alistair asked from his seat in an armchair.

“No—it simply won’t be around for another twenty years, so it’ll keep him occupied.” He then brought the tray across the room, setting it on the table between him and Alistair. “He’s honestly the worst decision River’s ever made… and the woman’s tried to kill me.”

“Sounds like there’s a more than interesting story behind that admission,” Alistair smirked. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.” He took his tea from the tray and sipped at it—perfect. “Hey, Doctor?”

The Time Lord glanced over as he sipped from his saucer. “Hmm?”

“This isn’t the last I’m going to deal with murderous extraterrestrials and you, is it?” Basil silently shrugged—it wasn’t for him to say. “Then… I won’t let anyone else know that you’re here. I didn’t put your existence in my cable to Geneva and I’m certainly not going to tell your other face when I meet you… which, how will I know it is _you_?”

“Trust me: you’ll know.”

“Now that I think about it, I’ll tell my wife, just to be sure she doesn’t think I’m seeing a mistress. I’ll leave out the alien part—you’re just an old mate I ran into while on a mission, which she already thinks is incredibly bland pseudo-soldier stuff.”

“Probably better that way,” Basil agreed. He glanced over at Alistair, quirking an eyebrow. “Is this saying you’re coming back?”

“How else am I going to keep tabs on you?” Alistair joked. “Something tells me that things just gravitate towards you. How else do you keep track of that?”

“Carefully? Poorly? I don’t know.” The office door then slammed open, causing him to wince as some books fell from precarious perches all over the room. “What is it _now_ , Nardole?”

Red in the face, Egg-Man didn’t say anything, instead throwing a newspaper down on the tea tray. Alistair opened it up—it was the evening’s edition of the Bristol Post, with a rather damning headline.

**_FIELD, PLASTIC DEBRIS, UP IN SMOKE, FOREIGN AGENTS BELIEVED AT PLAY_ **

“Well, they’re not _wrong_ , per say… and at least it looks like they’re blaming it on the Soviets,” Alistair noted. Egg-Man rolled his eyes and went into the police box, slamming that door behind him as well.

“Oi!” Basil shouted, “Where are my crisps?”

Egg-Man didn’t answer, which was fine enough. He wasn’t even certain he was in the mood for McCoy’s anyhow.


End file.
